“I hope this prize will incite thousands of British women to take close-up photos of their lovers’ bodies in all states of array and disarray.” Literary Review calls out the year’s most abominable sex scene.
“Never will I tire of that silvery fluidity”
Watch me spit, classic lit
Based on a recent Jay-Z and Kanye West joint, La Shea Delaney and Annabelle Quezada bring you the addictive track “B*tches in Bookstores.” This all despite West being a confirmed, even proud, non-reader.
Rhyme Time
Now this is a headline for the ages: “‘Self-Harmers are Not Just Depressives’: Writing a Book About Cutters Who Cook.” (Incidentally, the book in question is Jessica Soffer’s Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots, which we covered last week.)
A great hater of bad books.
The true confessions of Lev Grossman, book reviewer: “There was a time when I actually believed, because I was an ass, that as a critic I was an avenging angel with a flaming sword, and that part of my job was to help rid the culture of books that were sucking up more of the literary oxygen than they deserved.”
Bad Habits
There are many things you could call William S. Burroughs, who was born a hundred years ago this month, but Will Self prefers to call him “the original junkie,” a title which reflects the author’s hedonistic background and the strangeness of books like Naked Lunch. Self takes a close look at Burroughs’s novel-cum-memoir, Junky, in The Guardian.
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Is It Now.
With texting and instant messaging perpetually on the rise, the world’s punctuation is starting to evolve. At The New Republic, Ben Crair identifies an odd new consequence of this change: the period is now a sign of anger.
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Librarians on the Front Lines
“There are times it’s happening multiple times a day. Not too long ago, we had two in the same restroom at the same time. We call security, security calls paramedics. Of course they always find somebody lying there.” Samantha Sanders writes for Catapult about the epidemic of opioid overdoses in public libraries, and what some librarians are doing to respond. And ICYMI, here is Corinne Purtill in our own pages about British libraries under austerity cuts.
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Translated Books Giveaway
Those who donate to The Center for the Art of Translation get a chance to receive books signed by a pair of the top translators working today, Natasha Wimmer and Breon Mitchell.
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War and Peace a Bestseller
After 130 years, War and Peace is finally on the bestseller list. Pair with Edward Mullany’s piece on the second time he tried to read the book.